Cons or events starting or continuing through this coming week include the following. - For cons throughout the year visit the Northwest Science Fiction Resources Conventions list. And if I have missed a con, group or anythuing else let me know. This weekends main con is Emerald City ComicCon but check out all the other events taking place

Added X-Men: First Class trailer, a new longer trailer for the HBO Game of Thrones series, Transformer 3 Dark Side of the Moon, Thor, Captain America and the ComicCon Avengers Assemble footage to Movie and Television Trailers. In addition to that...

To see a full list of updates click and expand

News Snippets

Youtube Hobbit in 5 and writing contest

For those who cannot wait for the first of two Hobbit movies, there is now a youtube news site called Hobbit in 5 that gives a weekly run down of what is happening on the set. They also reported a writing contest with a statue of Gandalf as a price. Check out the latest Hobbit in 5 below. I will post it here and include in the movie trailers area in the future. As always visit the main page of one ring for the most information.

Fan Boys are announcing that Discworld, Terry Pratchett's fantasy masterpience, is coming to the big screen. Quoting from the article "directors Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Princess and the Frog) will be directing a traditionally animated Discworld movie for Disney."

Lucusfilm releasing a 3D version of Star Wars

Blastr is reporting that Lucasfilm is remastering the entire Star Wars saga in 3D and then release in theatres. Check out the Blastr site for details. For additional information check out the the Starwars.com article on the same subject.

Cameron going to the bottom of the Marianne's Trench

This was actually reported in September, but just found this article in the last day or so spelling out the details. Cameron is setting the stage for a dive to the bottom of the Marianne's Trench replete with a new two person submerssible and 3D cameras to catch footage for the sequel to Avatar, which, BTW, is supposed to have a substantial component of Pandora's underwater environment. Followup, the site for news about the second Avatar movie, avatar2movie.net has additional statistics. They are now reporting the second and third movies will be released in 2014 and 2015, filmed back to back. Also, the submerssible will be called Challenger Deep and will involve 8 tons of pressure per square inch. Check out the news site to get more info and ignore some of the fan created trailers, especially the avatar stars wars crossover ;-). And in hyping his latest produced underwater movie he had occasion to talk about some of the changes he has planned for the 3D staging for the next avatar movies that will hopefully solve some of unexpected problems for a limited number of people.

Seattle in 2015 Worldcon Bid Exploration Opened

Alexander von Thorn has posted information about SWOC possibly touching it toe back into the Worldcon Bid process and seeing if Seattle could possibly host a 2015 worldcon. If this is of interest, visit his facebook note and add your thoughts.

Universal and NBC to produce
movie and television series of Dark Tower

According to Deadline New York " Universal Pictures and NBC Universal Television Entertainment have closed a deal to turn Stephen King’s mammoth novel series The Dark Tower into a feature film trilogy and a network TV series, both of which will be creatively steered by the Oscar-winning team behind A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code." Read the complete article, but this could either be a big success or the great fiasco. Given the track record of some producers in translating King masterpieces onto the big or little screen it could go either way. The fact that Ron Howard has committed to direct the first feature and the first year of the television series which will follow gives hope that this will be a successful big success both artistically and financially, but we will see.

Harry Potter: The Exhibition
is at the Seattle Center

Seattle Has Won the Westercon 65 bid
now to be known as ConClusion

Bobbie DuFault reports that " We won the 65th Westercon in 2012 and it will be in Seattle" or, rather, the Seattle area :-) For more details check out their web page or their facebook presence. As a past bid chair for a westercon and vice chair for the actual westercon I bid for I more than fully understand the work ahead for them and wish them all the luck and support they can use, with the certainty that northwest fandom is some of the best around and this will be one of the best westercons yet :-

Further details were passed on a link on facebook: Westercon 65 is to be called ConClusion in honor of the whole 2012 end of the world thing. The convention theme is A Step Out of Time. Many traditions speak of an end of time as we know it, but we present it as an end of life as we know it and the dawn of a new age..."

BBC Tidbits
Torchwood, Doctor Who and More

And it is announced, Doctor Who will be filming part of its next season in the US. Check out the BBC web page for details.

For the press release I quote: " DOCTOR WHO TO FILM IN THE U.S. FOR THE FIRST TIME

Upcoming season's first two episodes to be set in the U.S. The BBC announced today that season six of Doctor Who, which delivered record ratings for BBC AMERICA earlier this year, will open with a spectacular two-parter set in the U.S. and penned by 'Who supremo' Steven Moffat. In the special two-parter co-produced with BBC AMERICA, key scenes will be filmed in Utah for a story set in the late '60s in which the Doctor, Amy and Rory find themselves on a secret summons that takes them on an adventure from the desert in Utah - right to the Oval Office itself."

Torchwood News

Russel T. Davies has been giving out interviews on we can expect from Season 4 of Torchwood sited in part in the US as well as Cardiff. Check out the Inside Treker's story on all the details about what we might expect. There is definitelly a lot a buzz and if you are not a fan you should be :-)

And with another account about possible Torchwood content and release dates for Series 4, check out the Den of Geek article where Davies reveals it will have a dark flavor springboarding off of Children of the Earth.(In my estimation this is a good thing. I was mightily overwhelmed by the mini mini series and what it portrayed. Oh, and dramatically the writing was extraordinary, but that could be only my opinion) Also, it will be a ten hour collaboration between BBC and Starz and will screen in summer of 2011, presumably locally here in the US on Starz. This actually gives me hope that some of the adult aspects of this fine series can shine again and the envelope stretched into interesting story lines. Fingers crossed. And for additional insights, check out the SyFy Blastr article about the Six Ways the New Season of Torchwood Will Change Everything. And Blastr has added additional info via STARZ about what the new US Torchwood team will look like and gives hints at what we can expect. Let us just hope Davies is given free reign to let Captain Jack be all he can be :-) and Gwen will be there as well. Knowing how well he writes I suspect a lot of surprises are waiting in the wings.

Below you will find a Calendar of events of interest to fandom. In many cases the map links will be of varying use depending on addressing information available from the events.